


Sonata

by orphan_account



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-25
Updated: 2011-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t like to think about it now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sonata

There was a thunderstorm one night.

That isn’t setting it up right. There was a thunderstorm one night, years before Ororo came, before indoor thunderstorms became a simple sign of teenage anger, before arguments led to rain dripping over Charles’ breakfast, his eggs sloppy and his newspaper sodden. Before he was used to them. Before they stopped scaring him.

And that was ridiculous, wasn’t it, a silly fear carried over from when he was a boy, and there was no one’s bed to crawl into to hide from thunder, no one telling him that god was bowling, or dancing, or whatever it was that parents told their children to shake the fear out of them. He was a scientist, for god’s sakes, and knew enough to rip the mystique out of them, but they still left him shaken and raw, for no good reason that he could think of.

There was a thunderstorm one night, when the mansion had gone dark, electricity cut like a puppet without strings, and the only illumination was the candles Raven had painstakingly lit in each room, the strike of lightning across the sky.

The thunder was louder than his heartbeat, when it came, louder than the hum of thought in the back of his head, everyone safe and settled, nothing to worry about, the children telling ghost stories that got more outlandish as they went on, their laughter carrying from the living room, where they were sprawled across couches, glad for a change in the routine.

Charles was trying to read by candlelight in the kitchen, journals that had already gone out of date since he’d gotten busy, started recruiting, started training, started whatever all this was. Erik was across the table, pretending to read, but Charles could feel him electrified by the whole thing, body humming like he wanted to go out in the rain and challenge the storm. He wouldn’t, because he was mature, he tried so hard to be _mature_ , but Charles could feel it in him, that urge.

Charles was shaking. Nothing serious, just an ugly tremor in his hands when he went to flip through pages, eyes unfocused on the ink. It was stupid, he knew it then, he’d always known it, a grown man, an educated man ,and yet he wanted to curl up somewhere it was safe, crawl under tables like a dog would, hide until the sky cleared.

Erik noticed it in him, somehow. Charles was a telepath, but Erik was perceptive, and Charles forgot that part of him too often, the part that read people well so he could be able to rip them apart by the weakest seams. Erik’s focus on him wasn’t like that, wasn’t angry in the way Erik was about so much else, but it was unnerving, like Charles imagined his own attention must feel like, were it turned right back upon him.

“Charles,” Erik said, voice low, and Charles willed his hands to stop their tremor, but it never worked like that. Could will anyone else to do anything he’d like, if he wanted, but never himself. “Perhaps you should go to bed.”

It was ludicrously early, evening having just darkened into night around the same time the storm rolled in and apparently decided to stay, but the idea of hiding under the covers and waiting until morning came was tempting. Not tempting enough to wander dark halls, however, not tempting enough to stomach the thought of being alone with his head and his rabbit-fast heartbeat.

“It is a little too early for that, don’t you think?” Charles asked, and it should have come out casual, but didn’t, tremor in his hands, tremor in his voice, and this was stupid, it was _stupid_ , he’d faced the ugliness of people’s minds, faced death, faced a glance into _Erik_. And yet.

“A drink, then,” Erik said. “Perhaps a game of chess.”

Charles took him up on that, the drink at least, the two of them traversing through gloomy hallways, Erik showing off with a metal lighter as he lit up the study and poured them a glass of scotch simultaneously. Not the chess, however, not after the first aborted moves, Charles starting at any errant sound, his drink in his unsteady hand.

“I’ve always liked thunderstorms,” Erik said, when it was clear the game was over before it truly started.

“I’m sure that would surprise no one,” Charles said, because you didn’t need to be a mind reader to know it was the sort of thing Erik would like, unbridled fury, incapable of being contained.

“Is it the thunder or the lightning?” Erik asked.

“Pardon?” Charles asked, going to refill his glass before Erik took the decanter from him, poured it himself.

“That scares you,” Erik said, handing him the glass, and waiting until Charles took a bracing sip, the low burn enough to settle his nerves, just a little. “Is it the thunder or the lightning?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “You never find one independent of the other.”

Erik watched him for a moment, and Charles could hardly see him through the flicker of the candlelight, his face all shadow, his eyes dark, for once, not the steady blue that always left Charles feeling a little cold, a little warm.

“You always deal with this alone, don’t you?” Erik asked.

Charles shrugged, had another sip of scotch.

“Martyr,” Erik said, and only he could make the word sound fond.

“It’s a rather silly fear to have,” Charles said. “Especially once you’ve grown too old to hide in your parents’ bed.”

“It’s not silly,” Erik said, and Charles didn’t press his mind, didn’t want to know if that was sympathetic nonsense, Erik, who watched his mother die in front of him, Erik, who faced off in the shadow of Birkenau and somehow won, Charles didn’t want his pity. Because it was a pitiful fear to have, truly, but it was his all the same.

They sipped their drinks in silence, for awhile, Erik pouring Charles another refill when he put his glass out, started to let the tipsiness overwhelm everything else, Erik nursing his first glass and simply sitting there, like he knew Charles couldn’t stand to be alone.

“Bed, perhaps,” Erik said, in lieu of pouring Charles a fourth glass, so Charles poured himself one instead, his hands gone strangely steady under the alcohol’s influence.

Erik poured himself another, after that, toyed with a bishop in the hand not curled around a glass. “You’re afraid to go to bed,” he said, finally.

“Yes,” Charles agreed.

“Come on,” Erik said, and Charles followed him down the halls, to his bedroom, where Erik waited as Charles changed into starch pyjamas at Erik’s insistence. Where Erik nudged him towards his bed with nothing more than a look, where he sat on the edge of the bed as Charles lay down.

He sang something then, something Charles didn’t recognize, low and melodious, German perhaps, or Yiddish, and Charles didn’t seek to ruffle through his mind to find out the meaning of it, because it came through. A lullaby.

When he finished, there was a moment where he perched, uncomfortable, unsure of whether to stay or to go, and Charles pressed _stay_ into his mind, perhaps threaded with too much need, because Erik took off his shoes, settled on top of the covers beside him.

“Sleep,” he said, fingers brushing over the back of Charles’ hand, and Charles closed his eyes.

The next morning it was sunny and warm, and Charles woke to a spot long grown cold beside him. The next morning, it felt unreal, like a dream.

Erik met his eyes at the breakfast table, smiled, small and warm, and Charles smiled back. He supposed that was all the evidence he needed. Along with half melted candle stubs in every room, along with the sodden lawn, there was that smile.

He doesn’t like to think about it now.

There was a thunderstorm one night, when Charles was young, and afraid, and he isn’t young anymore, nor afraid, not of things like thunder and rain, but he still flinches when he hears them. He flinches, because once, he had been young, and afraid, and Erik had been kind, and none of those things are true any longer.


End file.
